Jesus, Contradicted, Michael R. Licona. Zondervan Academic (ISBN: 9780310159599) 2024.

Summary: Addresses the discrepancies in gospel accounts drawing upon the conventions of ancient biography.

One of the challenges that comes with reading the gospels closely is that we notice discrepancies in the accounts. Not in the major facts but in the details. It is enough, though, that it raises questions about the reliability of the gospel accounts. And some of the efforts to “harmonize” the accounts just seem forced. In Jesus, Contradicted, Michael R. Licona, meets these objections head on without resorting to forced harmonization.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke raise a number of these questions. Most scholars believe Matthew and Luke used much of the material in Mark. Part of what is called “the Synoptic Problem” arises from the discrepancies between the very similar accounts. Some is grammatical, with Matthew and Luke improving on Mark’s rough grammar (does our doctrine of inspiration allow for that?). Licona goes into all of this, inviting us, first of all, to allow for the variations that often occur in eyewitness accounts.

More than this, Licona’s main argument is that we should not base our case for gospel reliability on modern historical accuracy. Rather, we should assess the gospels for what they are: first century biographies. Such biographies permitted the biographer greater freedom in reporting. While they did not invent events, they may not meet standards of exactitude required in a legal deposition. Wording may vary and minor details in an account may vary and yet the biography is accepted as true, especially if other accounts broadly confirm what is written.

Furthermore, biographers used various compositional devices that contribute to variation including paraphrasing and editing, compression displacement, transferal, conflation, simplification, and spotlighting. Licona discusses these various devices and where they may have been employed in gospel accounts.

But this may be troubling for some who hold to a commitment to the inerrancy of scripture. Licona observes that often, this view results in preconceptions of what scripture must be like that lead to the efforts in forced harmonization. Rather, he argues that “our view of scripture should be consistent with what we observe in scripture.” In other words, scripture rather than some standard external to it ought determine our understanding of its inspiration and trustworthiness. Licona takes several chapters ar the end of this work to elaborate this idea. He contrasts what he calls traditional inerrancy with flexible inerrancy. In his apologetic work, he reports that his approach has helped people return to faith who had turned away because traditional approaches to inerrancy had proven unsustainable.

I believe Licona makes an important contribution not only to our apologetic work around discrepancies in scripture. This will be helpful to many raising questions as they begin reading the gospels. And he offers a robust response to the “new atheist” who belittle the scriptures. But this is not all. He moves our discussion of inspiration and inerrancy beyond abstract terminology to the data of scripture itself. Instead of trying to conform scripture to the Procrustean bed of traditional inerrancy, he proposes a bed that follows the contours of the scriptures.

Furthermore, Licona presents this material in a highly readable form, reflecting experiences of presenting the material to the front office staff of a sports team and an adult Sunday School. This is a great text for teachers, apologists, and anyone who has not found satisfying responses to discrepancies in scripture.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.